ATELIER DE CHARLES LE BRUN Le roi gouverne par... Lot 30

ATELIER DE CHARLES LE BRUN Le roi gouverne par lui-même, probable engraving project contemporary with the eponymous painting on the ceiling of the Galerie des Glaces at the Château de Versailles. Sanguine, heightened with pen on the right. 43.5 x 55.5 cm. Tiling Restored in the corners, small accidents and stains, lined. Sanguine on squared paper Seventeenth-century work. Our drawing is to be compared with a series, probably produced by one and the same pupil of the workshop, of copies all made using the same technique (simple sanguine, mise au carreau clamped in pencil, always on two assembled sheets) of several of Le Brun's major works. Most of these are in the Louvre (see INV 30081, Recto) and may have been made for engraving. We can compare the composition with the version attributed to Claude Nivelon III, Le roi gouverne par lui-même (Musée du Louvre, INV 30066, Recto), where the figure in the foreground is also looking at the viewer, which is not the case in the final painting. The sheet is the result of two sheets that were assembled into one, between 1670 and 1680, judging by the two French watermarks on each. Fil 482 (16780-1690), Fil 1035 (1672), Filigranes et autres caractéristiques des papiers fabriqués en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIé siècles, Raymond Gaudriault, CNRS Editions